japan: [17] The hard laquer varnish called japan received its name, of course, because it came from Japan. But where did the name Japan come from? For the Japanese call their country Nippon. The answer is Chinese, where jih pun means literally ‘sunrise’ (jih is ‘sun’, and the equivalent term in Japanese is ni, so Japanese Nippon too is the ‘land of the rising sun’). The Chinese word came into English via Malay Japang. Another English derivative is the name of the shrub japonica [19], which originated in Japan.
